I received the following message today through the KMFMS comment form. The submitter didn't leave a return email address and I thought it would make for a good discussion, so I'm posting it here:

Quote:

Though I do agree with some of the statements made in your articles, I felt the need to say that they felt lacking in many places.

The car analogies aside, I found the discussion of the "alternatives" very flat.

For example, the main alternative given for the XBox was the Sony Playstation. I think you're well aware of Sony's business practices (the latest DRM tech developed demonstrates the lengths Sony will go to lock in customers at all costs), so why support them? It seems hypocritical to lambast Microsoft for their monopolistic business practices and then throw your support for another corporate beast with similarly poor quality and security in recent years.

Another example was the idea that Yahoo! is a supporter of allowing any browser access to its content. Have you tried using LAUNCHcast with something besides IE? Do you know many years support has been lacking for the latest Netscape-based browsers for this content?

If I found out some of these things after taking your advise to switch away from Microsoft I would question the credibility of the rest of your claims.

I do think there is some validity to your points, but I would first like to point out that the bulk of the KMFMS website was written in 1998 and at the time neither point applied in the way that it does now. So I think that the points that you picked up on are due mainly to things having changed over time rather than an intentionally skewed representation of the alternatives.

Regarding Yahoo!, when the alternatives page was written their services were indeed very broadly operating system agnostic. In fact, most of their services still do a respectable job of being cross-platform and cross-browser. The number of services that they offer has ballooned amazingly large over the years, and it isn't overly surprising that a few of their services can't work with all system configurations. Quite importantly, Yahoo! Mail, which is the service that KMFMS recommends, is still very much cross-platform and cross-browser. And I do think that the wording on the alternatives page is still accurate in commending Yahoo! for its compatibility record because a very large portion of their services are still widely available.

I think your point about Sony is a bit stronger. In fact, I'm considering removing the status of the Playstation as the recommended X Box alternative because of the recent fiasco where Sony shipped clandestine malware on their music CDs.

This is one of the frequent criticisms of the arguments on the KMFMS site - why single out Microsoft for the actions that are listed when so many other companies do the same things? There are at least two main reasons for this. First, Microsoft does have a monopoly position which makes the offenses more severe and less avoidable. Second, while some companies may match some of Microsoft's actions, it is the aggregation of the actions which makes it worse. How many companies actually do everything on the list of Microsoft's offenses? Not many that I know of (actually, I can't think of any).

When viewing the point that you raised about Sony from this perspective, it's not enough to say that Sony products are not a viable alternative because Sony also engages in a subset of the objectionable practices attributed to Microsoft. They don't engage in all (or most) of the practices in aggregate and they also don't wield their monopoly power because they aren't a monopoly. However, what they did with the malware CDs was particularly onerous and certainly matches (if not exceeds) some of Microsoft's practices in some of the more important categories listed. While Sony may not match Microsoft's numerous minor offenses, this is a more weighty issue. I might remove the recommendation at some point in the near future and would welcome a discussion on this.

sorry but at least xbox and playstation have tried to upgrade their systems. i'm not an xbox fan at all but nintendo is the cheapskate in the gaming department.... the Nintendo Wii is comparable (graphics-wise) to the Gamecube from several years ago. there's no noticable difference. all they managed to do was change their controllers and how the console looks. bang up job nintendo

sorry but at least xbox and playstation have tried to upgrade their systems. i'm not an xbox fan at all but nintendo is the cheapskate in the gaming department.... the Nintendo Wii is comparable (graphics-wise) to the Gamecube from several years ago. there's no noticable difference. all they managed to do was change their controllers and how the console looks. bang up job nintendo

Did you buy a Gamecube, Seth?
It was a Lot more powerful (and cheaper) than the PS2!
And Sony did win the competition due to the spread of piracy, imho:
the PSX was slightly less powerful than (cheaper) N64, but you could copy the games, and that's why so many people bought one.
PS2 did have the upper hand from the beginning, and again you could copy the games, so it won.
Two superior (and cheaper) consoles were defeated by Sony.
No wonder Nintendo has given up the competition for the most powerful hardware!
Nintendo (as always) is being widely innovative while the others are being more conservative (especially Microsoft) and except the computational power there no noticeable difference between Xbox and Xbox 360.
Anyway the Wii IS more powerful than Gamecube (3 or 4 times more powerful), only you are judging a new generation console from a game programmed for the GC (Zelda) and low budget games (Wii sports).
If you ran Devil May Cry 3 on the PS3 the graphics would still suck.
If you could, because the backward compatibility of the PS3 is broken. The differences between PS3 and PS2 are computational power, internet support, which is free unlike the one of Xbox 360, and the motion sensing, evidently a lame copy of Nintendo's one (copying rivals good ideas in a lame way, does this remind you of something?)
I think Sony is acting in in the console market like Microsoft does in computing under many perpectives.

I think Nintendo is a good alternative to both Microsoft and Sony, it just does what I like: innovate without trying to impose their own standards regardless of interoperability and safety.